ORIGINAL�ARTICLE

ABSTRACT
Objective: To assess the perception of students regarding the usefulness of formative assessments.
Study Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study.
Place and Duration of Study: Islamic International Medical College, from January to June 2015.
Materials and Methods:  A structured questionnaire was distributed to 150 medical students. Response rate 
was 90%. There were six questions regarding the scheduling, strategy and components of formative 
assessment while four questions were regarding the effectiveness of formative assessment in learning.
Results: It was found out that majority of the students (60%) were satisfied with placement of formative 
assessments in each module while 76.3% agreed that assessment were arranged regularly, though 22% 
disagreed with assessment plan. About 64 % students agreed that it facilitates learning process and motivates 
students to learn more. On the other hand only 20% students disagreed with its role in learning. Feedback and 
remedial  were relatively weaker as only 33 % students thought that feedback was effective and timely while 
most of students disagreed but were satisfied with remedial offered by each discipline.
Conclusion: The medical students consider formative assessment an important tool to enhance their learning 
process. More efforts are required to enhance the usefulness of formative assessments by improving the 
quality of feedback and the remedial offered for improvement.  
  
Key Words: Assessment, Constructive Feedback, Learning, Remedial Measures.

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a suitable curriculum.  Later on Allal and Lopez 
traced the history of formative assessment from 
Scriven's original definition of “formative 
evaluation” of educational programs, found out that 
term “assessment” had “progressively replaced 
‘evaluation’ during 1967. Benjamin Bloom used the 
term in 1968 in his book Learning for mastery and he 
described the role of formative assessment as a tool 
for improving the teaching-learning processes for 
students and how it can be accommodated in 

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content.  Formative assessment is the only mean by 
which subsequent educational decisions can be 
altered. The true purpose of formative assessment is 
fulfilled when it is applied on a frequent and regular 
basis to see  students’ progress and understanding 
and helps to identify their learning needs and  
adjusting the teaching appropriately. It is a 
midstream tool that is used by teachers to measure 
student understanding of specific topic or skill they 
are teaching. Formative assessment is said formative 
because it leads to adjustments according to learners 
need to form new learning because every formative 
assessment is followed by feedback provided to 
students regarding their performance and taken 
from students regarding content, learning and 
teaching strategies etc. Therefore it helps teacher to 
adjust or modify their learning strategy and student 

Introduction
Formative assessment is the process used by 
teachers and students to recognise and respond to 
students’ learning in order to enhance learning. It 
helps in learning by generating feedback information 
that is beneficial for both students and teachers. It is 
suggested that feedback enables students to 
reconstruct their understanding and skills and hence 
improve their performance. Rick Stiggins concluded 
“most of the teacher change their instructional 
strategy according to the demand of the students or 
modify their teaching modalities according to their 

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students' needs, hence owning their own learning”.  
Michael Scriven derived the term in 1967, during 
those times information gathered through formative 
evaluation was used to assess the effectiveness of a 
curriculum and guide school system choices to adopt 

Students' Perception of Formative Assessment at IIMC
1 2 3

Komel Zulfiqar , Shabana Ali , Amena Rahim

Correspondence:
Dr. Komal Zulfiqar
Assistant Professor, Community Medicine
Islamic International Medical College
Riphah International Universiy, Islamabad
E-mail: komal.zulfiqar@riphah.edu.pk 

1 2
Department of Community Medicine/ Anatomy /

3
Biochemistry
Islamic International Medical College
Riphah International Universiy, islamabad

Funding Source: NIL; Conflict of Interest: NIL
Received: Aug 19, 2016; Revised: Mar 06, 2017
Accepted: Mar 06, 2017

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Results
Response rate was 90% as 135 filled questionnaires 
were received. Results were analyzed by using SPSS 
21 for each while compiling the results male to 
female ratio was ignored. Most of the students (60%) 
were satisfied with placement of assessments in 
each module by concerned disciplines. However 
76.3% agreed that formative assessment were 
arranged regularly by each discipline although 22% 
disagreed with assessment plan. About 64 % 
students agreed that it always facilitates learning 
process and it also motivates students to learn more. 
On the other hand only 20% students disagreed with 
its role in learning. However very few number of 
students i.e. only 33% agreed that feedback was 
provided to them in time and remedial measures 
offered in each discipline were helpful in their 
learning.  

to improve their learning by provision of timely, 
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frequent and constructive feedback.  This feedback 
h a s  st ro n g  i n f l u e n c e  o n  st u d e nt ' s  f u t u re  
performance since it closes the gap between current 
and desired performance and delivers high quality 
information to students about their learning. It also 

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encourages and motivates student.   
At Islamic international Medical College, formal 
introduction of formative assessments in the 
modules was incorporated about two years ago, with 
the aim to support students learning. Purpose of 
t h e s e  a s s e s s m e n t s  w a s  t o  e m b o d y  t h e  
programmatic model of assessment in the students’ 

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curriculum.  Programmatic assessment model is 
based on the concept that arranged set of 
longitudinal assessment activities should be 
incorporated in order to enhance the effectiveness 
of formative assessments. Every formative 
assessment must be complemented by certain 
assessment points which must be aggregated 

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towards the final or summative assessments.    One 
important and critical component of formative 
assessment is the feedback which is used by students 
at one end to find out their deficiencies in their 
learning and teachers to tailor the teaching and 
learning strategies according to learners need at the 
other end. 

Materials and Methods
This was a quantitative cross-sectional study. A 
structured questionnaire was designed on five point 
Likert scale and construct validity was assured by 
expert opinion of four medical educationists. 
Purposive sampling technique was applied for 
collection of data. Fifty students each from 1st, 2nd 
and 3rd year MBBS students were selected randomly 
without the discrimination of gender. Fourth year 
and final students were not included since these 
students were not available at basic science campus 
due to clinical rotations. Students included were 
regularly taking their formative assessments. The 
students filled questionnaire in a given time. All the 
participants were given ten minutes to complete the 
questionnaire.  Questions were asked under three 
themes.
! The placement of formative assessments in each 

modules
! Role of formative assessment in their learning
! Effectiveness of feedback 

Table I: Frequency of students response on usefulness
of forma�ve assessment es�mated by using 5-point
Likert scale (N=135)

Discussion
Formative assessment is strongly emphasized over 
summative assessment in a competency-based 
education program. It underscore the development 
of proficiency through conscious practice. This 
concept underlines the need for effective 
instruction, mentoring, and feedback to the 
students. The content, plan, rate and timing of 
assessment are important factors to establish an 

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assessment policy in any medical school.
This study was designed to evaluate the process of 
formative assessment and perception of student' 

Formative Assessment at IIMCJIIMC 2017 Vol. 12, No.1  

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Therefore, formative assessment can be used in 
medical education to assess need, progress of 
medical students and to recognize and remediate the 
suboptimal performance of students. The optimum 
placement of formative assessment in each module 
for each subject with properly arranged effective 
constructive feedback to students may provide 
students to improve their learning.  

Recommendations
! Implementation: It should be the integral part of 

program design. It should be implemented 
gradually but consistently.

! Enabling environment: the institution should 
provide an environment which nurtures the 
development of faculty and create awareness 
about need of formative assessment.

! Faculty training:  Faculty should be trained to 
construct creative methods of assessment and to 
give timely and quality feedback. It has maximum 
effect on student's learning and future 

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performance.

! Student's training: students must be informed 
about formative assessment and reason why it is 
carried out. They should know how to receive 
feedback and improve their weaker areas.

! Student's feedback: it should be taken in routine 
to check the effectiveness of formative 
assessment in developing their concepts, 
modifying the way of delivery of content.

! Role of department of medical education: they 
should incorporate formative assessment in 
curriculum without compromising the content.

! Periodic evaluation of curriculum: regular 
formative assessment feedback given and taken 
from students may help in evaluation of 

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curriculum.

Conclusion
Expanded use of formative assessment should be 
followed by prompt feedback, and stress on remedial 
measures in order to enhance usefulness of 
formative assessments.

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1. David N, Debra MD. Rethinking Formative Assessment in 

HE: A theoretical model and seven principles of good 
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regarding its usefulness in learning. Study revealed 
that accurate and proper placement of formative 
assessment is assured in each module, but 
improvement in effective feedback with remediation 
offered is utmost need of the students. 
Nijhuis et al. specified three elements of the learning 
environment which may affect student's learning. 
These elements are lucidity of the goals, aptness of 
the workload and the usefulness of the literature.  
The surface learners recognize these elements 

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negatively.  
Academic reporting of achieved competencies has 
amplified the perplexity and decreased the 
motivation to learn in students. The current system 
of summative assessment encourages the students 
to find only right answers but opposes the true 
learning process. Learning is not merely the 
collections of right and wrong facts.
Regular formative assessments have a greater 
impact on academic achievements in students. It 
entails the students about their deficiencies in 
studies. Therefore proper scheduling of assessment 
is important. Regular formative assessment (76.3%) 
in every module will facilitate learning process. The 
students get motivated (63.7%) to become involved 
in the learning process as it helps to promote their 
growth. Regular formative assessment also increases 
the learning of students (63.7%) and hence the 
academic achievements as it guide them to the path 
of accomplishments. It has a great impact on student 
academic success, especially in constant low 

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achievers.
Feedback is taken for granted but it helps in self-
correction and improvement. Indirect forms of 
feedback maintain student motivation and 

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selfconfidence.  It should be precise, positive, 

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encouraging, and frequent and substantial.  
Successful feedback should clearly specify to the 
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may be considered as a single most important tool 

13
for professional development of students.  The 
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irregularly given (43%) to students. Clear and 
suitable assessment criteria shall be given to the 
students to judge their own progress during taking 
the remedial. Formative assessment assists the 
students to realize the standards that teachers may 
expect from them.

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